


Things Change, My Dear

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Wings, M/M, Touch-Starved, Wingfic, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 11:19:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16533611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Something about trust, something about touch.





	Things Change, My Dear

**Author's Note:**

> For the anon on Tumblr who screamed at me: "WINGFIC WINGFIC WINGFIC PLEASE DO A PUNISHER WINGFIC"
> 
> I had no idea what a wingfic was. I hope this is at least approximate to what you were hoping for.

David’s wings were, despite Frank’s attempts to ignore them, a source of idle fascination for Frank.

Most civilians had wings like frigates, or terns, or gulls. A few were more decorative, but of course, those with the prettiest wings usually ended up working as models, actors… pretty faces, pretty wings, they got you far that way. Adults saw them and steered the kids lucky enough to be born as such down a certain path.

Frank knew it well enough. It was the same for a lot of folks in the service. Adults saw any hint that a kid was developing hawk wings? Owl wings? _Eagle_? All the sudden all your toys were really just training you to fight. Athleticism was expected. Competitiveness. Violence, a willingness to brawl. But obedience, oh yes; they were drilled in that early on too.

It wasn’t fair, having so much of your life dictated by something that no one had any control over. Wings didn’t coincide with personality types or capability. There were murderers with silky white dove wings, comedians with the heavy black feathers of vultures. Wings meant _nothing_ about the person, but everything was judged by appearance. Seemed like a universal constant, as far as Frank could tell.

David’s wings were gorgeous, lustrous, a deep brown. Kite wings, Frank thought, watching the lanky idiot contort himself where he sat to try straightening a twisted tertial. He was lousy at preening himself. It was ridiculous that his wings should be in such good shape.

For the most part, David held himself in just such a way that eyes glanced off him. He wasn’t ugly -- there was a different sort of invisibility when you were ugly, Frank had learned. He just… did something, something with his posture, the angle of his head, the slight droop to his wings, that made you look right past him, unremarking, unnoticing. He did it on purpose, Frank decided.

It made it so that those moments where he stood up straight, wings spread, shoulders back, head held high and level -- in those moments, he looked so imperious, so unwaveringly certain, that you couldn’t help but take him seriously. Seeing him like that, you could almost believe David could fly.

Most people, of course, never learned to fly. The discipline required was enormous, and it was logistically, physically dangerous. You had to have the right body type, the right take-off vantage, the right wings. Flight was painful and demanding and absolutely the most freeing experience in the world, to those who managed it.

Frank had never flown, but he’d glided plenty, once upon a time. Most marines did, at some point in their careers. What Frank remembers is a blinding sort of pain, weight distributed in a way that it shouldn’t be; he remembers feeling like shit when the fighting was over. He remembers never wanting to put his feet back on the ground.

Fliers were generally lean, tailored people. They dedicated their lives to the sport, like ballerinas, like contortionists. Their bodies were tailored to it. Strict diets, absurd exercise regimens, daily practice drills that could kill them if -- when -- something went wrong. Lisa had wanted to be a flier, and with her wings coming in dark-feathered and broad, the possibility had been there. She could have been anything she wanted.

Both his kids could have been.

His finds his hands curling into hard fists and forces himself to let it go. He lets his stare bore back into David, watching him tuck his chin to his chest and twist his arm behind himself in an attempt to reach what Frank assumed was a very irritating spot.

Most of David’s seemingly innocuous behaviors had to be intentional. There was no way he could be this good at playing people and it not be intentional.

But the act of straining to reach those soft feathers flowing between his wings, of not being quite flexible enough to reach what he needed, that seemed oddly artless. And, Frank thinks with a sudden surge of the generosity that is coming more frequently to him around this bastard, it wasn’t like David had anyone he could preen with.

Grooming together was a huge deal. A lot of trust, and with it, a lot of implications. You would raise a child with someone you let preen you. You would trust them with your life. Being dead meant not being able to forge those connections. Frank could at least, if he absolutely needed the help, ask Curt. He remembers Karen running a hand over the curve of his outermost primary feather, and shudders. Touch was a big deal, and he trusted Karen implicitly -- for whatever reason, she trusted him, too. But he found no solace in her hand on his wing. He’d preened her, careful and calming after reappearing in her life, soothing her, but the second she’d reached to reciprocate, his wings had snapped away. It was the height of rudeness -- like saying, ‘you _have_ to trust me, but I refuse to trust you’, and it hit her hard. He’d seen the stoniness in her eyes, and under it, the hurt.

It was what it was. He hadn’t let anyone help since Maria. He’d come close, once or twice, with Curtis, because he was starving and desperate and hurt so soul-deep that the idea of someone caring enough to help him preen was unspeakably attractive. Both times, he’d gotten all the way to the block where Curt’s apartment was located, before coming to his senses and turning tail.

David didn’t have an option. David was cut off from his family. David had no friends to turn to, no one who knew he was alive.

What the hell. They made each other tea. Trusted each other to watch their backs. Curt had said David even offered his blood when Frank had been failing after the shit show at Gunner’s. David was like that, Frank was coming to realize; didn’t think to make Frank a sandwich when he made his own for the trip out to Kentucky, but would turn around and offer to open a vein for him.

Frank rises from the cot and moves to stand behind David. He moves in the careful, slow way he would in approaching a scared dog with big teeth -- not because he expected David to be able to hurt him, but because he couldn’t be sure that if David lashed out in startlement he wouldn’t break his scrawny arm in reflex.

Better to be slow, careful. David watched him from over his shoulders, and in the low light his eyes for once didn’t look so obscenely, unearthly blue -- they were dark, a deep sapphire tone so rich it was nearing black. Frank reaches out for the spot David’s been fighting to get to, and David lets out a low, relieved sound and looks away, nodding just slightly.

“Sit up,” Frank orders, hand still hovering close. “Face forward.”

Only when David obeys does he touch. He doesn’t comment on the way David’s whole frame tenses when his fingers start feeling through his feathers, plucking out old sheathes from recently molted feathers and flicking them away before returning to stroking, straightening, gathering the slowly building preen oil on his fingers and spreading it on the feathers David couldn’t reach.

He intends that to be it, just help where David absolutely needs it, but then he’s leaning gently against Frank’s hand, making the softest sound of eager pleasure.

Not uncommon, for there to be some level of arousal during preening, especially if you’d gone a while without the comfort of another’s assistance. That’s part of why it was such a big deal, choosing who you allowed that close, who chose to step into that bond with you. At this point, with just a few tentative touches between them, Frank would be completely within his rights to stop and leave David to finish on his own. Judging by the intense silence emanating from the analyst, David knows it too.

What surprises Frank, honestly, is that he remains. He knows exactly the effect his careful touches are having on David, and finds he _wants_ it.  

He hurts people. Since the loss of his family, that’s pretty much all he’s done. Even Karen, who reached out for him, who tried so hard to understand -- he’d pulled away, and he’d hurt her. Frank is very good at pushing away, at creating distance, at hurting. Here, having the chance to make David feel good… oh, he wants that. He wants, desperately, to remember what it felt like to give pleasure, and that it’s David under his hands now, David who annoyed him to no end, David with his sad camera feed watching his family survive without him, David with his sloping shoulders and tired, drooping wings -- that it’s David shuddering under his fingers feels right somehow.

Sinking his fingers more confidently into the softness of the feathers that spread between the joints of David’s wings and back, Frank busied himself with chasing down irregularities and getting every feather oriented in perfect alignment. David groans sweetly, not bothering to hide his relief. Frank thinks that if, were David to turn toward him, he’d see tears on those bearded cheeks, and that’s fine. They’d be tears of relief.

Once all the hard to reach spots are sorted, Frank runs his hand over the breadth of David’s right wing, feeling it shudder and beat, just slightly, under his touch. “Stretch for me,” he requests -- not orders, because you don’t give orders when you’re preening, not in a relationship like theirs, anyway. David seems to gather himself, exhaling a slow breath like he’s afraid of scaring Frank off, and does as bidden.

With most things, Frank is quick, efficient. A line of poetry, strangely apt, runs through his memory -- “ _Each thing I do, I rush through so I can do something else_ ”. Who was that, Blake? No, Dobyns, he thinks, slowing his hands as he combs and rubs and straightens. David’s breathing slowly steadies as he settles into a sort of rhythm, and he realizes he definitely doesn’t want to rush. He’s missed this, been starved for it, and David --

David hasn’t known any touch but his own in almost a year. The little bit of contact he’d gotten from Frank up to now had been accompanied by pain. No wonder he’s trembling. No wonder his hands are white-knuckled fists on his knees.

“Is this okay?” Frank asks gently, his voice putting a rough edge to the question. “Not too much?”

Answering in another question, David looks over his shoulder, eyes wide. “Can I take care of you next? Please, I, it’s been… it’s just…”

It shouldn’t be a question. The rules of preening etiquette dictate that the exchange is only initiated by someone who wanted reciprocation. That’s why it had hurt Karen so badly when he jerked away from her, when he didn’t lower himself back to her hand and allow her touch. David knows Frank in a tight, heady sort of way -- David knows he’ll deny himself this if he’s given any chance. David likes to say Frank hates things that are good for him, and maybe he’s right.

“Sure,” Frank says, a promise. Frank always keeps his promises. He keeps his hands, so used now to being hard, harmful things, weapons; he keeps them soft and careful. After breaking his fingers so many times, after rubbing the skin raw again and again on a hammer swung against stone, Frank has lost a fair bit of sensation in his calloused fingers. He compensates by making his hands loose and moving slow and steady. Each feather is shown consideration, tugged gently to make sure it’s not ready to molt, turns it against the rest to smooth everything into a more orderly, efficient whole.

They fall into a rhythm, David anticipating Frank’s aim and adjusting his wings accordingly. Frank ruffles his fingers through the down that trails up the back of David’s neck, blending into the fine baby hairs, just to feel David shiver. He feels over the thicker, longer feathers of his primaries, toys with his coverts, and then sweeps his palms along the whole of both wings, feeling for anything being out of place. After some time, it’s clear to both of them that he’s stalling, and David shifts restlessly in his seat, tucking his wings against his back.

“Okay,” Frank says softly, trying to keep his tone brusque and even, business-like. It was hard to look at this as an exchange of needs between comrades, which was how he desperately wanted to see it. But you didn’t preen just any comrade. You didn’t trust anyone but those closest to you with your wings -- it was tantamount to offering your neck. Outside of a medical setting, no one touched that part of you without some kind of deeper meaning ascribed to it. “Okay,” he says again, and his throat clicks softly when he swallows.

When David touches his wing, just the trace of fingers over the upper curve, he flinches away. It’s almost the same, sharp denial he’d shown Karen, and he feels his breath catch in his chest. The was a new war inside him; what he thought he deserved versus what he knew he needed. But ultimately, it was a glance over his shoulder, the sight of David’s face, so sad and so alone and so willing to just accept that Frank wouldn’t allow this after all, that makes him steady himself on his feet and lower his wings, slow and deliberate.

The second touch to his feathers is tentative, uncertain, like David was waiting to have this ripped from him. Fingers skirt along the outermost edge of his primary flight feathers, and he bites back a gasp. Whatever little sound it was that left him emboldens David, so that failing can be excused; the sensation of strong fingers working into the soft little feathers spread over his back makes him very nearly moan, and he understands a little better the position he’d put David in. His cock stirs and he tries to remember the last time he felt like this, comes up blank.

It’s been _years_ since he allowed anyone to touch his wings. Overseas, he and Billy had always taken care of each other; some of the other in Cerberus had eventually managed to ingratiate themselves into their little system, so no one was left out, but it had been different with Billy. He’d trusted Billy in a way that felt purely natural, this man he’d watched kill with a smile on his face, great heavy falcon wings fanned out like a dare, like a targets; this pretty-boy with a warrior’s heart. He’d never had to worry with Billy, never doubted him, and _god_ but he missed that.

This wasn’t like that. He’d been suspicious of David from the start, hadn’t trusted him -- waited, still, for the moment when David pulled that gun out from under his desk and shot him. It was wrong, completely and utterly, to feel that sort of doubt and allow the man to touch him like this. David owed him nothing. David was gentle and kind-hearted and didn’t really have the stomach for the work that lay ahead of them. David wasn’t _like_ Frank.

“Shh, Frank. I got you, you’re okay.”

The words bring Frank to an awareness that he’s panting softly, that his hands are balled up so tight it hurts, that his wings have drawn in tight to his body, like shields, like he’s under attack. To most people, that’s a posture that would scream ‘back off!”, like a painted warning sign in bright orange, ‘danger! Violence Eminent!’

David, to his credit, has not lifted his hands from Frank’s wings. He just keeps uttering these low, soothing noises, and suddenly it’s not Billy Russo, his old brother at arms, that Frank’s thinking of at all.

There had been nightmares, things he couldn’t suppress when he’d come back from his first tour. Tension and paranoia that had only grown with time. People who had always been easy around him looked at him differently, they kept their distance. They saw the warning signs in his body language, in the fierce directness of his gaze, and they let him alone. Except Maria. Maria saw the signs and pressed herself ever closer, always there, eternal support.

Maria. It’s Maria David reminds him of now, and that hurts in a way that’s so pointedly sharp Frank isn’t sure how he can stand it. It aches, and David just continues his gentle coaxing, getting Frank to slowly, slowly relax. Gentle and kind-hearted.

“Oh, Frank,” David murmurs softly, running fingers over the places where the feathers grow in crooked, where the skin shows, where the scars make the feathers come together in little knobby whorls, never properly formed. His wings ache and his shoulders feel suddenly heavy; he drops them, and David doesn’t stop. David is careful and considerate, understanding the magnitude of this for Frank. It’s been years, _god_ , so long, and David is much too gentle for his body to be reacting so strongly.

Somewhere in the joint of wing and body, a feather has been twisted, and Frank had gotten used to the discomfort because he simply couldn’t reach the spot to fix it. David finds the snarl and leans in, breath ghosting Frank’s neck before lips press there, making him shudder as the discomfort suddenly pulls free. It feels so good, so ungodly _good_ that Frank’s hips jerk slightly, and he smothers a little moan with his hand.

David is unrelenting. He seeks out the worst spots first and does everything he can to set them right. Frank had gorgeous wings, once upon a time. Like most vets, he’s taken a beating. He’s still whole, but even gliding at this point is beyond him. Too much is broken, too many feathers simply can’t grow in correctly any more. Severe trauma to his left wing made it unable to fully straighten without his holding it up with his hand. Like the rest of his body, his wings tell a tale of a long acquaintance with violence.

It hurts, letting David do this. Physically; his wings are so sore and so unused to being properly preened that having everything set back into order the way only an outsider could manage was painful. It’s also deeply pleasurable, and the combination _does_ something for Frank, something he really doesn’t much want to think about. When David steps in, closer than necessary, and presses against his back, he can tell it’s doing something for David, too. He could end this so easily. He could turn around and throw David through the fucking wall, and maybe that’s the right thing to do, the safe thing; maybe that’s the only way to put some distance back between them, to force David to remember who he is and what happens to people he likes, people he gets close to.

But he doesn’t. He draws his own wings in close so David can encircle them both with his, holding them in the safety of those great, strong limbs. Again, Frank marvels at the beauty of David’s wings, the neat layers of feather, the strength in them. Kite wings, wings any soldier would have been proud to show off.

In his way, David is as strong, as brave and deluded and certain of the inherent justice of his government, as any soldier. But he’s more self-possessed, more aware of the corruption. He’d defied the CoC in a desperate bid to point out injustice, trusting that another department could take care of it, that the Law would Save Them. Frank understands that naivete. He’d been there before; how could he not. David is slowly learning, just as Frank had learned, that the system of checks and balances in this administration was inherently flawed, riddled in and out with such corruption that nothing could heal it.

David holds him, in his arms and in the great circle of his wings, and Frank thinks _I can’t do this_.

He thinks, _A starving man must eat_.

It’s inevitable, really. Maybe it was from the beginning. Certainly it seems like everything has been steering them this way when Frank turns his head, looks over his shoulder to meet David’s eyes, and finds himself being kissed.

A kiss is communication. It can say different things. This kiss is soft and questioning, not quite chaste. It says _I’m hungry_ , it says _I can wait_. It is a promise, and a dare, and an assurance. David never takes more than is offered; David can be a selfish little shit, but he respects boundaries.

So Frank pushes his wings open, a sudden show of force that knocks David back, so his own wings flutter, just barely keeping himself on his feet. Frank turns on David, rounds on him with his wings raised, posturing without meaning to. Later, David will describe to him the way he looks in that moment, his face set, his wings aloft, stepping toward David ‘like the wrath of God’, and he’ll say that, his tone torn between amusement and awe, and Frank will have no choice but to punch his shoulder call him, affectionately, a jackass.

At the time, though, David just takes a single step back, lips just barely parted, hands half-raised before Frank has hold of him, one hand against his neck, one gripping his shoulder, hauling him in so they’re chest to chest. David, his heart is beating so hard it’s all Frank can feel, that beating between them, as he tilts his head up and catches David in a kiss that’s altogether different from the one he’d just broken.

It says _we’re starving_ , it says _we can eat_. It’s an admission, Frank pressing onto David that he wants this, has wanted it, is willing to take it if David wants to give. It’s heat, inexorable, bathing them both in flames that have kindled low in their guts, their psyches, for weeks now at the least. It’s trust and it’s a demand and it’s deep, furious desire born from too long in denial. It’s frightening and Frank quakes with it, moves to step back, and David digs his fingers in the scarred flesh of Frank’s biceps and shoves himself closer. Frank notes that their wings are both stretched wide as they can be, that David’s span is wider than Frank’s, that the tips of those gorgeous wings are swiping various bits of bric a brac off David’s desk and to the floor.

“Okay,” Frank breathes, taking a moment to regroup. That fire between them licks at his ribs and between his teeth, desire so thick he thinks he’ll choke on it. “Okay.”

“Yeah?” David says, and he’s moving his wings carefully now, lifting them and drawing them in to avoid knocking anything else down. He leans their foreheads together, nuzzles Frank’s nose with his own, so gentle, so insistent, that Frank wants to slam David into the wall and bite those lips until he _bleeds_ , until his grip is hard and shaking, until he’s as furious in this as Frank feels.

He guides him to the bed, instead. He pushes him down on the cot and listens to it complain as David settles there, legs invitingly spread. When he gets on his knees, those bright eyes widen, implications dawning, and Frank finds himself liking that look. It’s honest.

Often, they talk in circles when they talk; they go around and around what they really want to say, neither quite daring, not wanting to risk another argument. They have a tentative peace, ever since the disaster at Gunner’s. David carrying Frank out of there had been its own sort of admission, just like going out and bringing Curtis back here, letting someone else in because he could have died elsewise and David wasn’t willing to risk it.

What they’re doing compromises that peace. It steals their objectivity, if either of them still had any at this point. How is Frank supposed to go to Sarah and look at her now, after this? How can he go on playing the sympathetic friend after crossing this boundary, after watching David come barreling across that invisible line of propriety created by the wedding band he’s still wearing -- that he never takes off.

Fingers brush his jaw and he looks up, into those eyes that are so kind and see so much, somehow, however Frank tries to hide. “We don’t have to,” David says, an assurance; bold from a man who’s cock is straining the front of his jeans so hard Frank can only imagine it hurts. “I can see you thinking. It’s okay.”

Frank says nothing, but his fingers make quick work of the fly and zipper of those jeans, and David exhales something soft and shaky as he sits back and lifts his hips so Frank can drag his clothes down his hips. He does all of this without breaking eye contact, because he’s making a point here as much as he’s doing anything else.

It’s been a long damn time since he did this, long enough he worries for a second when he finally focuses on the dick in front of him that he won’t remember how to do it. He leans in and wraps his lips around the head, gliding his tongue firm and wet over the crown, and David barks out a noise that’s both eager and shocked. He takes that as a good sign. When he presses his fingers into the spot just behind David’s balls, the sound is choked and desperate.

There is no dragging it out. Frank can’t shake the pervasive feeling that he’s stealing something here, despite the general acceptance between all married people that any preening partner your spouse has could end up in their bed. Maria had encouraged Frank to take comfort where he could, and Frank certainly hadn’t begrudged her the comfort she found with her friends. But not all marriages are like that; some people cling to their partners, block everyone else out.

David bucks up helplessly, his cock pressing into the heat of Frank’s throat, and Frank pulls back, not quite gagging. David’s wings flutter, rising up behind him as his orgasm approaches, and Frank is amused to see, sitting back and stroking David through his orgasm, that the feathers fluff up, giving him a sort of soft, plush look. He comes in Frank’s fist with his eyes squeezed shut and his lips parted, he exhales Frank’s name a moment later.

Picking himself up off the floor, Frank finds one of the cleaner rags he uses for taking care of his guns and wipes his hands on it. He offers it to David, who looks at him in a pointed way that Frank refuses to acknowledge.

His cock is hard and he _wants_ , and what he wants he thinks David would let him have, even if he did just come. But Frank can only handle so much. The whirlwind can only last so long before it spins itself out and leaves the survivors dazed and lost, picking up the pieces in the aftermath. Frank is not ready to fuck anyone, and certainly not this man, this man who reminds him of Maria and Billy all at the same time.

It’s not meant as a slight, and David seems to get that, cleaning himself up and pulling his jeans back on before laying back and lifting his arms to Frank.

“No funny business,” he promises, flexing his fingers like a kid reaching for what they can’t have. “Just… lay down with me. You know I’ll pass out in like five minutes. C’mon. Just for a bit.”

And Frank could say no. Frank could laugh and walk away, tell David to fuck off. Frank could push away again, even now. He could keep pushing until David got the point that it had all be a mistake, a lapse of judgement, moment of weakness, whatever. Almost certainly that’s what he should do -- the people Frank loves have a bad habit of ending up injured and dead.

The shitty cot creaks ominously when Frank puts his knee on it and David rolls onto his side, making room. Frank finds, surprised, that they fit very nicely together on that hard bed, David tucking himself up under Frank’s arm, face pressed to Frank’s chest. Awkwardly, Frank drapes one wing over them, and David smiles against his skin and closes his eyes. True to his claim, his breathing evens out quickly, leaving Frank holding him as he sleeps.

Frank thinks about pulling away, and all the ways a man can do that. He thinks about loneliness so vast and dark that you were blinded by it. He thinks about the softness of a man and all the ways he could be hurt, all the ways it does and doesn’t show. Eyes so blue they can’t be real, glistening with tears, shining with fury, bright on him with delight.

At some point, he falls asleep too, and that’s better.


End file.
